A fairly underwhelming evening by Calgary, mainly because they didn't show up until they were behind in the second. The first period was a complete write off and the club was lucky the game wasn't all but over heading into the second.

Iginla with another goal, this time off a three one one, but he was under water again this evening. Unlike the game in Detroit, however, he faced mostly secondary competition this evening to being on the wrong side of things isn't as understandable. That said, the team also had the most chances with him on theice this evening so...

Rene Bourque is really fighting things right now. I thought the Backlund line was fairly strong in the first in terms of being the only trio spending any time in the offensive zone. Unfortunately there were unable to really yield scoring chances from their efforts. As they game went on, pucks continued to bounce of their stick in the scoring area for one reason or another.

The Flames marginal third period advantage in the scoring chance department was due to Rangers effectively shutting things down. They got in front of a lot of pucks and managed to push the Flames to the outside most of the time.

I figure our magic number is somewhere around 4 for the ENTIRE rest of the season. As in (if my math is correct) if we lose 4 in a row, or 4 of 10, we're effectively eliminated from the playoffs, already. We'd have to then play over or near .700 hockey to get to 95 pts, and... uhhh... almost nobody does that as it's a 115+pt season pace.

Whether or not management 'wants' to pack it in for the season, they may have no choice at this point.

Someone else put up a record a while back, but I don't generally feel extremely worried until it's over .600. Well, with these two losses (DET and NYR) we're very much there.

Yeah, at this point the Flames would have to continue to play as well as possible and get a helping hand from the percentage fairy in order to pull off that record. To say nothing of incurring any more injuries to significant players.

I wish this season was happening next year, cause then I would advocate moving Kiprusoff, or trying to anyway. But like I said last year, 2011-12 is really the first year it makes sense, and he'll still be in the last year of the NMC then.

But right now, with Vokoun, Bryzgalov and Giguere being in the final year of their contracts, this season, they'll drive this year's market down to nothing. We'd be lucky to get a young goalie and a high pick in return and I doubt even that with his price tag. Washington would do well to pick up a goalie, but my crystal ball says Vokoun will end up there.

Langkow is hurt, and Iggy has a full endorsement. Reggie just won't be seen for what he is.

We have so few moveable assets... it could be a long year next year as well.

Yeah...the only way to convert Kipper into something worthwhile would be at the deadline, assuming there was some contender out there who would consider Kipper a vital cog in a potential playoff run. Philly for instance.

That said, I'm certain Sutter would rather cut his arm off than trade Kiprusoff.

Possibly, I still think that Philly or Washington would go hard after Vokoun and Giguere before even considering Kipper. Not because they're necessarily better, although Vokoun likely is, but just because they're much less risk, and probably less needing to be offered to boot.

Well these losses in the bag hurt but let's face it, Calgary is not a team whose talent is reflected properly by its 2-8-1 streak (that's expansion Capitals territory) or even its 8-11-1 record. This team is 0.500 or better against the field in more than half a million of a million parallel universes. So that's that.

But, yes. From a "let's just get in and win" perspective every loss hurts. The way they play sometimes is infuriating too, like seemingly this first period (which unfortunately I didn't catch on the radio).

Still they have some terrific players and have played some terrific games and have really gotten jobbed at times by posts and just-misses and officiating. And if you accept that all of these factors are random (a stretch given Colie-gate but let's run with it) then this is a team that still has within its range of reasonable outcomes a lot of playoff-bound endgames. Like let's say 2 in 5, maybe 1 in 3.

A 10-game streak of, say, 0.800 hockey, well outside of the team's actual ability, at any point this season... and skill might have a say again.

Reasonable?

In any case I think the season would just be more pleasant if we just accepted that while much of this is the fault of management/coaching/players, there's more than plenty of real estate that bad luck takes up. It happens, nothing any of us can do about it.

On things:

Iginla sure is looking (or in this game for me, sounding, in the 2nd and 3rd) way better. Though I heard a bunch of Maher going "pass just misses" vis-a-vis 12 so I can just picture in my mind his new favorite pass. Oh well, at least it's not the blind drop pass of doom from Bertuzzi.

Bourque has been invisible, concussed still? A fine player and a damn shame.

Vancouver currently sits in 8th with 23 points with 20 games played. Both Vancouver and Calgary have 62 games remaining. As you pointed out Calgary has to win at a % .629 to = 95 points. Vancouver on the flip side has to win at a % of .581 to hit the magic 95. Basically without taking any other teams into consideration Calgary has to win 3 more games than Vancouver at this point. We still have 6 games against them. It isn't out of the realm of possibility yet.

I'm not advocating getting rid of plan B, but I woulnd't man the life boats just yet.

6 vs Vancouver. 4 each vs Dallas and St Louis who will be in the hunt for those spots. 4 more vs Colorado and 5 vs Minny who currently occupy spots in the top 8 (percentage -wise) Anaheim is a .500 club so far??!!. Notice the Ducks have allowed 12 more goals than they have scored and still have a point per game to show for it. Calgary's goal diff only -2 and we are 3 games under !

You're very correct. We are not a 2-8-1 team. But we likely are between a 5-5-0 and 6-4-0 team, and neither are good enough now. We're only slightly off pace, as our 59 goals for should equate to ~9.5 wins...or 19 points. So the bounces, have robbed us, yes, but only a little.

@Citizen Flame

Plan B doesn't mean blowing things up, but at some point you can re-adjust your goals. Yes, Vancouver is only 6 points ahead, but you're being entranced by GP (even an .800 team would only have 32 pts right now.) Heck, LA is only 9 ahead, that's ONLY 4.5 wins and we play them 3 more times, but everyone else in this league is trying to win too.

@Prairie Stew

Yeah, our goal differential tells us we should be higher, especially if you start lopping off blowouts (cause those games are losses whether they are 7-2 or 3-2), but we've been on the fatty side of differential for a few years, squeezing out more wins than we "should" have by differential. This year, we're not so fortunate.

I'm glad you're all optimistic, as I find it hard to be:

62 games remain and:

6-3-1, 6-3-1, 6-3-1, 6-3-1, 6-3-1, 7-5-0 would probably squeak us into 8th. That's troubling and would be a remarkable turn around.